The Solicitor General: The Politics of Law

Beschreibung

Beschreibung

Shows that politicization of the Justice Department makes the work of the nation's lawyer an integral component of executive policy-making. Focusing on the selection of solicitors general and the political and legal environment, this work analyzes the Supreme Court cases in which the government was a participant from 1959 through 1986.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments Introduction: The Government's Lawyer 1. An Overview of the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States 2. The Cream of the Crop: The Fifth Floor of Justice 3. Untangling the Bramblebush: External Demands and Influences 4. Vested Interests: The Government as a Party Before the Supreme Court 5. Friend of the Court: The Government as Amicus 6. The Dilemma of Serving Two Masters: Strategies for Individual Rights Cases Conclusion: The Balancing Act: The Solicitor General and American Politics Appendix A: Solicitors General of the United States Appendix B: Organizational Charts Appendix C: Data Collection Notes Bibliography Index

Pressestimmen

"[T]he most comprehensive work thus far available on the executive branch's representative in Supreme Court litigation...What makes Salokar's book so important and...makes it stand alone in the literature on the solicitor general's role in the litigation process is that she demonstrates through careful, empirical analysis how the office has been used to advance the political and policy objectives of presidential administrations over time." --American Political Science Review "Salokar's book is quite simply the best scholarly study to date of the solicitor general." --Choice "I know of no comparable scholarly study of the Solicitor General... The unique set of quantitative data on the U.S. government cases that Salokar collected and analyzed...illuminates some of the important patterns in the decisions and success of the Solicitor General." --Lawrence Baum, Ohio State University